Technology provides many new ways to contact and connect with family, friends, co-workers, caregivers, and even professional service providers. Often, a user is connected to these different individuals through a social or professional network. The network may be implemented as a standalone service or can be as simple as a contact list in a smart phone. A user may, in general, interact with individuals in the network by broadcasting electronic messages or posting messages to the network. However, interacting with the network in this way can lead to an overwhelming number of messages being directed to each individual in the network. The overwhelming number of messages occurs when not only the user but other users in the network are posting/sending messages. As a result, many messages that are not all relevant to each individual are, nonetheless, being sent to each individual.
As a consequence of the multiplicity of messages, individuals in the network may suffer from alert fatigue causing them to ignore or not respond to messages. Alert fatigue occurs when an individual no longer views or responds to messages because they receive so many messages that are irrelevant. Additionally, when a message is relevant to an individual, the message may still be sent to them even though they are presently indisposed thus compounding the alert fatigue. Difficulties with alert fatigue and messages that do not account for availability of the recipient can cause even greater difficulties when, for example, the messages are emergency messages and/or are messages of a high importance.